John Van Benschoten (Pirates) throws a gyroball (video inside)

[kyleb]

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This pitch is sick as [censored]. Van Benschoten's grip is the exact same grip I use to throw my two-seam gyroball, and it has almost the exact same movement as mine. I start it on the hands of the RH batter (like he does) and it comes in fast with the same gyroscopic spin and fade.



From the YouTube video that I uploaded:



"On June 16th the Pirates hosted the White Sox. In the third inning, John Van Benschoten struck out Tadahito Iguchi looking on a 1-2 count with an offspeed pitch. The announcers couldn't tell what kind of pitch it was - the slow motion video and grip clearly show a grip that is the exact same thing as the two-seam gyroball grip from Himeno and Tezuka's book. The action on the pitch is extremely similar to video of known pitchers who throw the gyroball. Was Van Benschoten taught how to throw the gyroball, or is this a variant of the slider (think Matsuzaka's pronation slider)?"

[ThePoppinE]

What other pitchers throw the gyroball and are they the shizzle as having such a legendary pitch as the gyroball would suggest?

[Your Mom]

looks like a slider that backs up.

[kyleb]

[ QUOTE ]
looks like a slider that backs up.

[/ QUOTE ]

Pretty common description of gyroballs thrown as well as pronated sliders.

[kyleb]

[ QUOTE ]
What other pitchers throw the gyroball and are they the shizzle as having such a legendary pitch as the gyroball would suggest?

[/ QUOTE ]

It's not a legendary pitch. The media's perception of the pitch is pretty ridiculous; it lends an aura of "unhittableness" to the pitch. Pedro's circle change was unhittable. Jake Peavy's slider is unhittable. The gyroball, despite popular opinion, is really good for ground balls and not necessarily strikeouts.

My sources say that at least one pitcher in the Brewers' system throws the gyroball, but I won't name the pitcher for identity protection reasons.

[RunDownHouse]

The high-center cam makes an appearance!

That pitch really was sick. He almost looked like he was flinching cause he thought it was close to hitting him. This wasn't the thing you wanted to rip an mlb.tv feed for though, right?

[kyleb]

No, this was. This is my rip.

[irunnotgood]

Looks like a backup slider, what kind of spin does it have?

[jah7_fsu1]

I'm kinda sick of the whole gyroball thing...yeah it's cool and all, but it's way overplayed by the media. If someone can throw it, but isn't a good pitcher, who gives a rats ass? I'm sure people can learn how to throw this, but if they aren't effective with it, who cares?

Sorry for the slight rant!

[NT!]

what's sick is that the ump called that a strike